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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500189">The Weight of a Name.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/letalloursingingfollowhim/pseuds/Jem'>Jem (letalloursingingfollowhim)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>We Are The Tigers - Allen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mattie has a breakdown in English class basically, Mattie has trauma ya'll are just too afraid to say it, Post-Canon, She is the Only character, This is sort of really awful because it wasn't meant to be a full fic, Uh oh it became a fic, happy-ish ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:42:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,095</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/letalloursingingfollowhim/pseuds/Jem</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The weight which a name can carry is great. However, sometimes the greatness of a name can be tainted. </p>
<p>(Basically, no one discusses Mattie’s trauma from prison, so here is a short fic based on the trauma from prison and how it feels for her to hear her name spoken by those who aren’t convicts again).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Weight of a Name.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It’s taken me ages to actually edit this. It’s sort of shitty and really short (1,100 words) because I think this was for a prompt at another time and I was writing it with the intention of sending it to a server, but it sort of spiralled, wrote this one shot.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Everywhere around her were people she didn’t recognise, she had never been able to recognise them, Mattie had never seen any of these people in her English class before. They all looked confident and happy, talking loudly as she sat alone, the chair beside her empty. Around the room, empty whispers of nothings seemed to sound louder than they should sound, like car alarms and fireworks.</p>
<p>They were talking about her, Mattie was sure. They were talking about her and it was loud. All Mattie could hear, if she tuned herself into the noise, was her name. The whispers were beginning to sound angry; their words like sandpaper, harsh and unforgiving.</p>
<p>No one had mentioned Mattie as she had come back to school. No one had remembered who she was from orientation. No one had heard the name “Mattie Wheeler” in months. The whole of the ninth grade at Giles Corey High School didn’t much care about the one new face who had popped up in a few classes. But Mattie was sure they knew. Sure they were talking about her. Conspiring, plotting.</p>
<p>It felt like she was on fire all over, a burning sensation that had started in her chest and pit of her stomach was rapidly starting to spread over her entire body. Mattie felt both heavy and weightless at the same time, her skin prickling underneath her fuzzy blue sweater.</p>
<p>They were screaming her name. Her name was being screamed, loud and harsh, the sound taunting her. She’d heard the same thing before. Her name shouted to her, pleading yet taunting. The other inmates who were with Mattie loved to say her name. It seemed to roll off their tongues in the smooth fashion in which honey ran. Her name had stopped feeling like her name long before the English class; no longer a word which was only spoken by those who care about her.</p>
<p>It was so loud. The sound was so taunting. It hurt. It hurt so much. Her body was still burning. Her classmates had to be convicts too, only convicts would be able to say her name in such a way.</p>
<p>Mattie clenched her hands into fists by her sides - maybe if she stopped moving, became invisible, they’d all stop. Stop the whispering. Stop the speaking. Stop the shouting. If going still and silent worked in prison, it should surely work here too. It had to work.</p>
<p>“Mattie?” Mrs Davidson spoke gently, suddenly very aware of a barely-breathing-barely-moving Mattie Wheeler. Mrs Davidson spoke with a tone unlike the ones Mattie was able to hear, soft and careful, tiptoeing around words,</p>
<p>Mattie didn’t reply. She had heard her teacher, and it had sounded kind, the sort of voice that she had needed within the anger that boomed from the rest of the room. …Until it merged into the painful din of everyone else - loud and unrelenting.</p>
<p>“Mattie Wheeler?” Mrs Davidson prompted again, getting up from her seat at the desk to standing beside Mattie. The English class could barely tell that their teacher had moved from her assumed position, far too busy on their assigned project, their voices not raising above their approved volume. “Mattie, do you need some help with anything?”</p>
<p>She could feel her heart rate spike suddenly as her teacher spoke to her. Mattie could feel the eyes on her everywhere, the eyes and the whispers and the pleading. It was too much. It was too much. Staying still and quiet wouldn’t work. Mattie couldn’t do this forever.</p>
<p>“Mattie do you-” Mrs Davidson began once again.</p>
<p>“Shut up!” Mattie exclaimed, her eyes suddenly snapping up the teacher, her fists unclenching. “Everyone shut up, shut up!”</p>
<p>“Mattie-”</p>
<p>“Don’t use my name like that!” Mattie stood up quickly, her heart racing, feeling the blood rush through her ears; hands numb, breath quick. “Stop, stop, stop!”</p>
<p>Mattie stared around at her English class, each face a stranger still, someone she had never recognised. Her chest began to rise and fall, fluttering and rapid, too quickly for comfort.</p>
<p>“Mattie Wheeler!” Mrs Davidson replied, her voice dripping with shock and unavoidable anger. She’d been told not to tell Mattie off; she’d been told not to raise her voice at Mattie.</p>
<p>Mattie couldn’t take her name any longer. The name which had been said in that way that too much - the anger, the plead, the shock.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” Mattie cried, her voice a broken, filled with sobs and painful gasps as she stood frozen. Mattie was still as her body shook uncontrollably, unable to regulate her breathing. “I didn’t- I-.”</p>
<p>“Okay, okay. Mattie, come with me, alright?” Mrs Davidson’s voice was so soft, so gentle, as she reached out a hand. Mattie’s table and seat was close enough to the door that the walk wasn’t a long one out of the classroom.</p>
<p>There were other students staring, their eyes trained on Mattie; the first time they had paid much attention to the new student, the first time it had occurred to them that anything of their class had changed. The whispers started again, but this time, the whispers were real. Harsh and real, true confusion and malice behind each whisper at her name. The rumours were biting.</p>
<p>Mattie shook her head in reply to her teacher, still standing as tight and as still as possible, tears streaming down her face, burning as they ran. The calls of Mattie’s name didn’t seem any louder or harsher to Mattie any more, simply, they felt distant. So far away, as Mattie looked around, she couldn’t quite tell that she was in the same room as the voices any more. All the people she didn’t recognise - blurry.</p>
<p>Then she was in the hallway. Mrs Davidson sat beside her, counting through breathing, slow and deep, in and out.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Mattie mumbled, tugging at the sleeve of her sweater.</p>
<p>“You don’t need to be, I promise. You did the best you could today,” Mrs Davidson replied, her voice filled with calm reassurance.</p>
<p>“What about- what about the class?”“They’ll forget about this all eventually. Take a day or so more off, okay? That must’ve been hard.”</p>
<p>Mattie nodded at that. She was exhausted and aching all over as she started to properly process what had gone on. “I’m sorry…” she hummed again, her voice quieter than before.</p>
<p>Mattie knew she wasn’t okay, but she knew she’d get stronger every day. This was one hurdle to overcome, and she came out the other side. It would be okay in the end, she was sure.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>!!!!</p>
<p>Leave thoughts pls lol thx.</p>
<p>-Jem.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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